Heartless
by walutahanga
Summary: Max had thought Zack didn't care one way or another about Tinga's son. She was right.


**Title**:Heartless

**Author**: walutahanga

**Summary**: Max had thought Zack didn't care one way or another about Tinga's son. She was right.

--

Zack saw the kid once, just after he was born.

He had come in the middle of the night, when the husband was working late. He had been filled with disapproval and authority, determined _this_ time to get Tinga to abandon the burdens she'd saddled herself with and move on to safer grounds. She'd been in San Fransisco too long. She had friends, co-workers, family. Every month she stayed heightened the risk that someone would piece together the small oddities about her, and come up with the truth.

The husband had been bad enough. Most of the 09-ers had been in a serious relationship at some stage or another, and been forced to leave them behind when Lydecker's men got too close. Zack had convinced himself that this time was no different. Just another lover to be discarded when the time came.

But the kid changed everything. The kid was something else altogether.

Tinga was sitting in the kitchen in a nightgown, gently rocking the small mewling creature, singing under her breath. Her hair was pinned up, soft curls brushing the nape of her neck. She looked absurdly… normal. Domesticated in a way that X5 never were and couldn't afford to be.

"I heard you coming," she said without looking up. Zack stood silently in the doorway. "Take a seat. I'll put the kettle on."

"This isn't a social call," he said.

"It's _never_ a social call," she snapped. "So unless Lydecker's men are coming up the stairs right now, you can take the time for one damn cup of tea."

Sensing that argument wouldn't help, he pulled out a chair and sat down. The kid whined, tiny fists opening and closing, grasping at nothing.

"Should it be doing that?" Zack asked, and got a withering look in return.

"_His_ name is Case, and no, he shouldn't. He has a cold. The doctor has given us some meds, and it seems to be clearing up now."

Zack shrugged, not truly interested.

Tinga stood. Her feet were bare on the linoleum floor.

"I'll get you that tea," she said, and held the kid out to Zack. Zack realized what she wanted and almost recoiled.

"No," he said.

"Just take him," she said. "Don't be such a baby about it."

Tinga had always been good at making him feel small. Where Max could ask him for something with those big eyes of hers, and he would have given her the world, Tinga could bully and scold him until not complying seemed not only selfish but unreasonable in the extreme. He accepted the baby reluctantly and tucked it in the crook of his arm like Tinga had done. It squinted up at him, and it's squalling stepped up a notch, grating against his sensitive hearing.

"Why's it doing that?" He asked over the noise.

"He doesn't know you," Tinga said. She walked over to the bench and took cups out of the cupboard. "He's very advanced for his age. He's recognising faces now."

"Transgenic DNA?"

"Could be. Honey or sugar?"

"I don't care." Zack shifted his weight, adjusting his grip on the baby. It's small body was arced away from him, every muscle tensed in resistence as it kept wailing. "You can't keep it, you know."

She ignored him, pouring the water.

"It's just going to slow you down. It and your husband. And what if Lydecker gets his hands on it? He won't let millions of dollars worth of genetic material slide. The best thing you can do is move on, and let your husband take care of it. There'd be nothing to link you together. They'd be safe."

He'd prepared his reasons before he came, playing the whole scenario out in his head. In his head, Tinga had looked troubled. She'd argued, but deep down known the truth of them.

Outside his head, Tinga didn't even react. She set a cup of tea down in front of him, and sat down on the other chair, calmly sipping from her cup. She made no move to take the wailing kid from him.

"Case," she said over the noise.

"What?"

"His name is Case, and if you refer to him as 'it' again, I'm going to knock your teeth in, CO or not."

If he hadn't been holding the thing in his arms, he might have had a decent retort. As it was, he was acutely aware how much his authority was undermined by holding this useless, noisy thing that might break if he dropped it or held it the wrong way.

"Tinga, will you please take i– him. Please."

Tinga set her mug on the table, and took the baby from him. He watched her settle it in her arms, murmuring soothing nothings. It's squalling lessened.

"Hey, it's okay," she crooned. "It's okay. That was just your mean uncle Zack. He's real grumpy because he's loves us and worries about us so much. You'll understand when you get older…"

"I'm not his uncle," he said, and his voice was colder than he meant it to be.

Tinga was silent, and he realized he'd hurt her.

"Well," she said at last, and her voice was neutral. "So long as that's clear."

"You need to leave," he said.

"No," she said. "No, Zack. I really think _you_ should leave now."

He stood and moved to the door.

"If you change your mind, you know the contact number."

"Go," she said.

He left.

He stood out on the cold sidewalk below the apartment, breath misting in the crisp night air. If he listened, he could hear the thin, high wails of the baby.

Many people had accused him of being heartless, but the opposite was actually true. He loved _too_ much. Ben spoke of a soul; of a misty intangible thing that lived inside a person. Zack knew better. His soul was in Max's brown eyes and in the warm clasp of Ben's small hand in his. And every time another one of them was taken away, a little bit more of him died.

He couldn't love this offspring of Tinga's. He was stretched too thin as it was, wracked with grief over the ones that were gone and worry for the ones that weren't. He couldn't love this thing that would never know the hardship of survival, would never be a soldier, never be anything other than a burden. Would never be one of them. He couldn't waste time and energy and emotion on something so completely doomed to fail.

He had no more of himself left to give.

--


End file.
